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A wallet linked to the $40 million ZKasino scam lost more than $27 million after a leveraged position was liquidated, marking what some in the crypto community are calling a dose of karmic justice.

ZKasino launched in April 2024, luring investor capital by promising an airdrop of its native token to users who bridged Ether (ETH) to the platform.

However, instead of returning the funds, ZKasino transferred around $33 million in user ETH to the staking protocol Lido Finance.

Nearly a year later, the wallet behind the alleged exploit has been liquidated for $27.1 million after ETH’s price declined sharply, according to blockchain analytics platform Onchain Lens.

“A scammer gets a dose of karma,” Onchain Lens wrote in an April 7 X post, adding:

“The ZkCasino scammer, who scammed $40M+, closed its $ETH (20x) position on #Hyperliquid, faced a total loss of $27.1M.”

Following the liquidation, affected users appear no closer to recovering their funds.

Related: Trump’s Liberation Day: ‘Climax of uncertainty’ before crypto market recovery

The liquidation comes after a period of record-breaking sell-offs in traditional equity markets that led to a crypto market correction, which saw ETH’s price fall to a near two-year low of $1,480, last seen in May 2023.

Earlier on April 7, an unidentified crypto whale was forced to make a $14 million emergency deposit to avoid an over $340 million Ether liquidation.

Related: Smart money still hunting for memecoins despite end of ‘supercycle’

The ZKasino exit scam

After being accused of running an exit scam, ZKasino said it initiated a 72-hour process to return funds to investors a month after transferring the $30 million of user funds to Lido.

“We are now initiating the 2-step bridge back process in which bridgers can sign up and bridge back their ETH at a 1:1 ratio,” ZKasino said in a May 28, 2024, Medium post, adding that the team hasn’t given up on the project.

However, any investors wanting their ETH back will forfeit any allocated ZKAS tokens and the remaining 14 months of ZKAS releases, ZKasino said.

On April 29, 2024, Dutch authorities arrested one of the people suspected to be responsible for the “rug pull.” A few days later, all bridged ETH was returned to the ZKasino multisig wallet as Derivative Monke publicly denied the rug pull allegations on X.

However, ZKasino still hasn’t returned the ETH nearly a year after the incident.

“Unfortunately, everyone who sent the ZKAS back has not heard anything from them yet,” one user, who communicated on the condition that his identity not be revealed, told Cointelegraph in August 2024.

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Learn MoreZKasino scammer loses $27M as Ethereum price drops

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DeFi’s largest protocol, the Aave decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), has officially approved a $1 million token buyback initiative that will start on April 9. The proposal secured 439,000 votes in favor, well above the required 320,000 quorum, while only 2,020 votes opposed it. This move is part of a broader plan to strengthen Aave’s tokenomics […]

The post Aave DAO greenlights $1 million weekly token buyback amid market decline appeared first on CryptoSlate.

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Learn MoreAave DAO greenlights $1 million weekly token buyback amid market decline

An unidentified cryptocurrency whale injected millions of dollars in emergency capital to avoid a potential liquidation of more than $300 million in Ether as markets slumped amid renewed macroeconomic pressure.

The whale is reportedly close to liquidation on a 220,000 Ether (ETH) position on MakerDAO, a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform. To stave off liquidation, the investor deposited 10,000 ETH — worth more than $14.5 million — and 3.54 million Dai (DAI) to raise the position’s liquidation price, blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain said in an April 7 post on X.

“If $ETH drops to $1,119.3, the 220,000 $ETH($340M) will be liquidated.”

The development came hours after another Ether investor was liquidated for over $106 million on the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Sky.

The whale lost more than 67,000 ETH when the asset crashed by around 14% on April 6. Sky’s system employs an overcollateralization ratio, typically 150% or higher, meaning that users need to deposit at least $150 worth of ETH to borrow 100 DAI.

Related: Decentralized exchanges gain ground despite $6M Hyperliquid exploit

According to data from CoinGlass, more than 446,000 positions have been liquidated in the past 24 hours, with total losses surpassing $1.36 billion. That includes $1.21 billion in long positions and $152 million in shorts.

The largest single liquidation was a $7 million Bitcoin (BTC) position on crypto exchange OKX.

Related: Smart money still hunting for memecoins despite end of ‘supercycle’

Crypto markets crash after Trump’s tariff announcement, but 70% recovery chance by June

US President Donald Trump announced his reciprocal import tariffs on April 2, which sent tremors across global markets, leading to a $5 trillion loss by the S&P 500, its largest two-day drop on record.

Still, the tariff announcement may finally end the global uncertainty plaguing traditional and digital markets for the past two months.

“In my opinion, the tariffs are the representation of the uncertainty in the markets,” Michaël van de Poppe, founder of MN Consultancy, told Cointelegraph. “Liberation Day is basically the peak of that period, the climax of uncertainty. Now it’s out in the open. Everybody knows the new playing field.”

The end of tariff-related uncertainty may bring the start of a “rotation toward the crypto markets,” as investors will start buying the dip as digital assets become “undervalued,” said van de Poppe.

Crypto intelligence firm Nansen also estimated a 70% probability that the market may bottom by June, depending on how the tariff negotiations evolve.

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A crypto user has gone very long on Solana, staking a very small portion of the token for the next 3,000 years, according to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence.

The unknown user staked $0.05 Solana (SOL) in 2023, and it will unlock in the year 5138, Arkham said in an April 5 post to X.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Vincent Liu, chief investment officer at Kronos Research, said the move was likely a symbolic sign of showing conviction in Solana’s long-term ecosystem.

“Legacy staking is more than locking assets it’s a mindset. The real edge in crypto isn’t in chasing short-term hype, but in holding long-term conviction assets through cycles,” he said.

Adding that: “this kind of thinking builds not just portfolios, but long term legacies.”

SOL is currently trading for $102, according to CoinMarketCap. A January report from asset manager Bitwise predicts the token could be worth between $2,300 and over $6,000 by 2030.

It’s impossible to know what the staked SOL will be worth by the time it’s unlocked in a few thousand years, but Liu says it would likely be a significant sum.

“If SOL appreciates just 2–5% annually, the compounding over 3,000 years becomes exponential. In any market condition, long-term compounding remains one of the most powerful financial forces,” he said.

Staking Solana for over 3 millennia

To put it into perspective, 5 cents compounded annually at a 3% annual interest rate would already result in over $486 undecillion (486 followed by 36 zeros) after 3,115 years.

However, the Solana sum would likely be much higher, given staking rewards are paid out every two to three days and compounded.

Users on X are speculating that the stake could be an attempt at creating generational wealth, or a random stunt with no real long-term plan.

Kadan Stadelmann, chief technology officer at blockchain platform Komodo, told Cointelegraph he thinks the “3,000-year nickel play on SOL is a meme trade” that will one day be stamped on the SOL blockchain.

Related: Solana TVL hits new high in SOL terms, DEX volumes show strength — Will SOL price react?

“What will 3,000 years from now look like? Will humans still be around? Will the Solana blockchain? Such a long time horizon makes one ponder one’s place in the scheme of things,” Stadelmann said.  

He speculates people might even seek to outdo it by “making a 5,000-year play.”

At the moment, depending on the platform and validator choice, Solana can offer between 5% to over 8% in staking rewards. Meanwhile, Cardano (ADA) can start at around 2%, and Ether (ETH) staking rewards are usually between 2% and 7%.

Four Solana whales recently profited over $200 million in a staking play that began in April 2021, when they staked 1.79 million Solana, worth $37.7 million at the time. 

A similar unlock is expected in 2028. 

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Learn MoreTrader stakes $0.05 of SOL for 3,000 years: Here’s what it’ll be worth in 5138